Bi-Weekly Update for 10/13/08

[Ramsey]

1) Update Overview
-Donation Tracking
-Combat Branch Improvements
-Faction Features
-Creature Scripts
-Deliver Mission Enabled
-Crafting and Data Collection Progress
-Travel Updates
-Gameplay Fixes
-Profession Representative Team Re-organization
-New Event Coordination Team
-Jeff Freeman Memorial


2) Body

Donation Tracking:

Kyle has developed a neat little donation tracker that can be viewed on the main forums page. We hope this tracker will give the community a good idea of what we need to meet our monthly maintenance fees. If you have any questions about the tracker, please don't hesitate to ask.

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Combat Branch Improvements

As we've mentioned before, we forked core3 into a separate branch that. One which contains all stable test center code, the other is focused on overhauling the combat portion of the code to be much more organized and easy to use. The overhaul will also make combat much accurate and inline with original PreCU combat (equations and all). The combat branch will eventually be merged back into the stable core3 branch when we feel it is ready to go. If you are at all interested in viewing the code changes for the branch, it is freely available on the SVN under "core3/branches/CombatTest".

We would also like to mention that the SWGEmu Jedi team has been working on specific Jedi functions for Core3 and has been an invaluable part of the combat overhaul. It is hard to have a focused test center with Jedi being an option at this point in time, and the team has made it much easier on that front.

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Faction Features:

Bobius has added a ton of faction related features into the game. The faction rank system (w/ points) is now functional and will appear as normal on your character sheet. NPC's affiliated with a faction will now attack players AND other NPC's opposing factions (video below). This is a huge step in the way the SWG game world on Core3 will shape up to be. These changes will, of course, drop into upcoming AI features.

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Creature Scripts:

Kellina, along with the Caves research team, have continued to add/update Creatures scripts. A plethora of revisions have been dedicated to refineing and balancing creatures. If you would like to view the specific changes, see the following revisions; 763, 780 (DWB), 782, 783, 786, 787, 789, 806.

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Deliver Mission Enabled:

Basic deliver missions will hit SVN soon. The secret box mission will be the only one available, if there are no related crashes with that then multiple scripted deliver missions will be available.Test away!

Screen. The NPC will, of course, be placed further away from the terminal.

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Crafting and Data Collection Progress

Kyle, Tek, Tow'lin and the Schematic Team have been working hard over the last two weeks, and into the future, on entering all the schematic data into the database, so that crafting can be implemented ASAP! This has not been without help, however. We'd like to extend our thanks to thebrodieman, Minard, RainerS, Eladi, Karrion and many others who assisted with data collection and filling in huge tailor and architect spreadsheets.
We're glad to report on the crafting front that Doctor/Medic schematics are coming along very nicely, the Architect schematics are being filled as we speak, and Armorsmith and Artisan are also top priorities as they too start to really take shape.

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Travel Updates

Bobius' hard work on travel has really begun to pay off, with the galactic travel system nearing full Pre-CU operation. Every starport has been enabled on the TC, with ticket terminals and droids that were once missing now in proper order.
The Quality Assurance team, as well as several distinguished community members have been working with Kellina, Bobius and Thrin to fully document every ticket terminal and shuttleport across the galaxy, and note what fixes needed to be made. Almost all of these have been fixed, if not, please report the bugs using support!
Unfortunately Talus' Ticket vendors are still on strike (refusing to sell tickets), but this too will be fixed soon.

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Gameplay Fixes:

Here is a list of gameplay changes that do not necessarily require a topic of their own, but are still very important in fine tuning the precu experience. Not all, but, a lot of it was done by kyle, kellina, Thrin, farmer, and bobius. Thank them if you see them around on IRC

-Bothan minimum height set to 1
-Aggro settings now take into account Zone changes
-Creature spatial chat now easier to do
-Burst Run and Meditation now takes into account the current player state/position.
-Patched exploit that allowed a user to change status to guild leader
-Various planet map improvements

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Profession Representative Team Re-organization

In an effort to better match the progress and work being done by the Devs and Community, we have re-organized the Prof Rep Team. The "new" Rep Team is composed of a smaller group of individuals with broader responsibilities across multiple professions, ie grouped by category. Each person on the Rep Team will be working simply as a "Profession Representative" and thus available to everybody in the Community for any profession even though most will specialize in one or two areas. We hope this brings greater involvement of the Reps as well as better two-way communication throughout the project.

As we work through the details of this major change, we will be focusing on the new Combat Code with panchjr, crafting tasks with Kyle and a general cleanup/update of the Prof Forums. The list of Prof Reps might change over the next few weeks, but here is the current list for the community to contact. PLEASE NOTE: the category following each Reps name is just a general focus point but all of the Reps and TAfirehawk, Rep Team Leader, will be involved in every single profession.

Sirius - GCW/Melee Combat
egoa - Melee Combat
Maximilius - Ranged Combat
Tolbat - Commando/Ranged Combat
WickedHangover - BH/Ranged Combat
Tow'lin - Crafting
Nefyr - Crafting
learningdisease - Crafting
Lorrianna - Merchant/Crafting
vorta - Scout/Crafting
Iakimo - Scout
Samcuu - Medic
Aremathiea - Entertainer
kaeilea - Entertainer


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New Event Coordination Team

SWGEmu would like to announce the creation of a New Event Coordination Team. This team, under the leadership of Kellina, will be working with the CSR team to bring the Test Center new and exciting events: Beach Parties, Cantina Crawls, Story Telling, as well as the always popular PvP Events (minus the debugger hopefully) and much, much more.

The "ECs" will be answering tickets and helping in SWGEmu's IRC Support Channel: #swgemusupport

New ideas for events are always welcome, so feel free to contact any of the team members with your ideas and questions. So join us in welcoming the new EC Team:
Baylor
Egoa
MrBlonde

As the server grows we will be adding more to the team.

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Jeff Freeman Memorial

In observance of the death of Jeff Freeman, we have erected a memorial in the memory of him in the center of Theed.

The NGE which, as we all know, was a change motivated by corporate greed - not the creativity of the employees. Jeff Freeman (age 39) worked at SOE as a designer of SWG until late 2006 and received much of the public blame for the NGE blunder. About two weeks ago, he committed suicide for "troubling personal issues" according to his brother. We have the utmost respect for a character like Freeman who under the stressful clash between; his beliefs, the requests of his employer, and the scrutiny of the community, made choices that brought us PreCU. The pressure he had to endure probably required him to distort the vision of PreCU we all came to know and love, which, as one could guess, made Mr. Freeman's latter years at SOE an unfortunate heartbreaking experience.

We have the ability to infinitely love one another, something most of us do not exercise enough. His death will always be a reminder to seek the beauty of others who cannot see it in themselves. May he rest in peace.

[Ramsey]

3) Developers Perspective:

Bobius:

I've been working hard in the past few weeks getting the GCW system set up properly. I've got faction recruiters working, faction points working, smugglers buying and selling FPs, faction ranks, and you respond as you should to players and NPCs of the other faction.

Most excitingly, Faction NPCs respond to you and each other as they should now.



The faction that we can now make the fight each other gives us the opportunity to test NPC AI and to balance them. Kellina has been working hard on this.

I'm currently working to make it so that you can go overt, covert, and on leave, so that we can remove the NO-PVP zone and make the faction system a little bit closer to being as it was on live. My main hold up is that I can not find the right packet to send to make your faction icon disappear when you're covert. I'll probably just release the system without that aspect until I get it figured out, because it's purely aesthetic.

Sytner:

The past few weeks I’ve been focused more or less exclusively on the editors and client research; here’s a brief summary of what I’ve been up to:

• Merged the world snapshot and terrain editors - my goal is to create a single editor that will give complete control over the creation/modification of a planet.
• Done some preliminary work on the 3D editor, including importing SWGs models.
• Added support for editing datatables (.iff) and string files (.stf); some of these will load automatically for the planet you are editing (e.g. the environments table).
• Redesigned the GUI to be able to accommodate the ever increasing number of features.

Screeny.

Due to the amount of time I’ve put into the editor, I unfortunately haven’t had time finish off or make a video of Taanab yet. I know some people are looking forward to this and I will endeavour to get it done when I have some time.

Panchjr:

I have been working on the Combat Test code and will be for a while.

The combat testing is a good example of how we are more professional in our working practices. It involves close collaboration between development, the QA team and the profession representatives. It may appear to be slow progress but that is because we are thoroughly testing every change and trying to wipe out all the bugs we find before moving to the next stage. As the code is held as a branch separate from the main code we can take the time to get it right. Once everyone involved is happy that it is working as it should it will be merged back into the trunk so that you can all get to play with it.

Ramsey:

I've been really busy with other things so this project hasn't been able to get my full attention. That should change as we move closer to the holidays, so I'm looking forward to that time of the year. Nothing new on my front except I fixed some mission bugs that have been around for weeks. Missions will start out slow on the TC so please report any bug findings through support, it would really help out in the long run

Community Service Comments:
Its been another great fortnight here at SWGemu! The Test Centre has been bustling every evening, and even late into the night, and the forums and IRC have been as friendly and welcoming as ever. Thank you guys for your work in making this a really friendly place for new members - It's great to see the old Pre-CU community spirit come out when stroling through Theed, and hearing a seasoned PvP master teaching the brand new day 1 player how to use specials and get buffs.
Something else that has been going on this week and last was a lot of excitement with the introduction of Bobius' extended GCW functionality. Having faction NPCs really fight players and each other, as well as the new ranking and FP system, has made the GCW much more exciting and appealing for everyone. These and the future GCW improvements will allow for us to run more canon events, and really up the ante of immersion into the Star Wars universe that we all know and love.
A quick reminder that the Theed No-PVP zone is still in place, 50m around the Faction Recruiters, until the GCW development comes to a phase where recruiter placement, covert/over status, and timers have all been adjusted to their normal pre-CU status.

Finally, Jump on the Test Centre and have some fun!! TC numbers in the evenings have been dipping since last month, with around 100 on most evenings in October. That's really impressive, however its not the 220 we were getting in September! So, if you're bored and free, why not whip up the Launchpad and have a laugh with the great people in Theed, or have a crack at the DWB or any of the new spawns just added. If you're a new member, or don't have SWG installed; grab out the old discs and check it all out. Setup is quick and simple thanks to the LPE.

Hope to see you around the galaxy!
-- Max & The Community Service Team.

4) Closing:

Since we are shifting more towards bug fixes, the presentation of the BiWeekly will probably be modified in some shape or form. We'll be thinking of how to approach that during the next two weeks.

As stated in the Community Service Comments, we need more people getting on the TC and rigorously using all features of the game. We really need to chew out the code and make sure everything works as intended and at its best.

Until next time,
-Team SWGEmu

[Ramsey]

Reserved.

Staff, feel free to make changes / add your own round table entries.

[MrBlonde]

Nice Update.

Props to Tow'lin and all the folks working on Schematics.

[Ralbane]

Can't wait for the crafting schematics.

[corbaer]

Thank you for the update and all the efforts. I hope to get on for the first time in about an hour. I'm a little giddy.

[Wharmaster]

W000t! Rock on SWGemu team!!

Also gotta chime in...can't wait for the schematics!!

[Seaseme]

great update boys and girls!!

[Seaseme]

mm double post

[tek]

Awesome update...

If yer bored and looking to help out.. Don't forget to stop by Kyle's sweat shop, #CraftingTesting

We need fresh meat

[Timbab]

Awesome stuff guys.

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by tek

Awesome update...

If yer bored and looking to help out.. Don't forget to stop by Kyle's sweat shop, #CraftingTesting

We need fresh meat

Why are you posting and not working!

[Valoram]

great job devs! can't wait until architect scematics are in

[Max]

mmm happiness

[learningdisease]

I am completely astounded by the progress this project has been making these past few months. Just reading over the last 4 to 6 postings of Bi-Weeklies shows that this epic project has fully turned the corner, and a true PreCU experience is in plain sight! The player enthusiasm and support is completely awe inspiring and extremely humbling.

I am extremely glad to be a part of this community and the team resurrecting one of the best--scratch that--THE BEST MMORPG ever to be imagined, and it is truly a collaboration between the coders, the testers, the players, and the supporters.

The outpour of encouragement from all of the people involved truly excites and motivates me to further ramp up my involvement in the implementation of features that I have been part of. Expect to see more static spawns in caves on planets (more like Moons!) such as Lok, Rori, and Talus, in the near future, not to mention the various factional encounters on the way!

The increase in activity on our bug tracker (http://www.swgemu.com/support) has been monumental in the progress of completion of the core features, and I encourage all players to report ANY glitch/bug/discrepancy they find. You may not realize how important these simple reports are to the functionality of finished game, but they will be the CORE of the polishing that will take place as more and more features of this diverse world are implemented.

I want to take the time to say thank you again to all the people who support this project, including all the hard work by the Developer Team, and that your time is well spent! It may feel a heck of a lot like fun, but at the same time, its getting us to our final goal that much faster!

Don't hesitate to hop on the Test Center, or the IRC network to get involved! I'm always glad to meet fresh faces and long time vets. I'm almost ALWAYS around, and you can feel free to strike up a conversation with me about pretty much anything . I look forward to seeing you all out there in the field! LONG LIVE PRECU!